General Discussion

OpEdNews Original Content
September 13, 2007
By By Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret., National Commander, The Patriots

An Open Letter to the New Generation of Military Officers Serving and Protecting Our Nation

Dear Comrades in Arms,

You are facing challenges in 2007 that we of previous generations never dreamed of. I'm just an old fighter pilot (101 combat missions in Vietnam , F-4 Phantom, Phu Cat, 1969-1970) who's now a disabled veteran with terminal cancer from Agent Orange. Our mailing list (over 22,000) includes veterans from all branches of the service, all political parties, and all parts of the political spectrum. We are Republicans and Democrats, Greens and Libertarians, Constitutionists and Reformers, and a good many Independents. What unites us is our desire for a government that (1) follows the Constitution, (2) honors the truth, and (3) serves the people.

Members of Veterans for Peace and the Impeachment Coalition of Dane County have called upon Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz to stand up for America, to call for the Madison city council to reconsider its recent impeachment resolution and to vote yes on impeachment.

Buzz Davis, a Veteran for Peace (VFP) and a Coalition member, said, "The mayor is the political leader of the city. He has taken an oath of office to support the United States Constitution. The Constitution is being shredded in front of us with illegal wars of aggression, illegal torture and illegal wiretapping by the Bush/Cheney administration. Fifty-four percent (54%) of the public believes impeachment investigations should commence against Cheney and 76% of the Democrats feel the same way. Mayor Cieslewicz is a Democrat and was elected as a Democrat. In 2005 the Democratic Party of WI was the second Democratic party in the nation to call for impeachment. The Green Party called for impeachment even earlier."

University of Florida Student Arrested, Tasered at Kerry Forum After Asking About Election

A University of Florida student was Tasered and arrested after trying to ask U.S. Senator John Kerry about the 2004 election and other subjects during a campus forum.

Videos of the incident posted on several Web sites show officers pulling Andrew Meyer, 21, away from the microphone after he asks Kerry about impeaching President Bush and whether he and Bush were both members of the secret society Skull and Bones at Yale University.

Bush has bought himself another year in Iraq. Mission accomplished -- again! Barring a miracle (doubtful) or impeachment proceedings (inconceivable), our brave troops are guaranteed to be stuck in Iraq for the next 16 months. Kick the can on down the road.

Now this was interesting. I was ensconced in the basement of the CodePINK house hand coding the Bye Bye Gonzo going away party blog post when a ruckus erupted out front on the sidewalk. Seems a visit was being made by some pro-military types who were expressing their contempt of the CodePINK ladies' peaceful message. Some of the gals were a little ruffled by this appearance and others went outside for an "open meaningful discussion of views". I paid little attention as the situation didn't seem overtly threatening and I sent the wife, Mrs. Cactus, out to take a couple photos and went back to the tedium of preparing a blog post with eleven embedded photos.

Around the time I was making real progress, CodePINK friend Lydia comes in and suggests the pro-military group needs to see some "MEN" come out of the house to show them its not just women in the group. So I figure, what the hey?, and mosey out to take measure of the goings-on...

In the big business media's "two years after Katrina" coverage, there was one glaring omission -- the story of the utter bankruptcy of the so-called Black leadership, in particular, the Black Democratic Party establishment. Nothing confirms that story better than the brief appearance in New Orleans on August 29 of President George W. Bush. As one resident of a FEMA trailer park aptly described the visit, "it was like the rapist being allowed to return to the scene of the crime with impunity."

A skeptical public expects little of this week's developments on Iraq: More than half of Americans think the Petraeus report will try to sugar-coat the real situation there, and two-thirds don't believe it will influence George W. Bush's war policy anyway.

“President” Bush may not be willing to visit Vermont, but one of Vermont’s finest, ex-marine Matt Howard, was in Australia today delivering the message to Bush and the world that we have seen through his lies, calling him and his sycophants out for their criminal Iraq adventure.
The three mile steel barrier that the city erected to keep the Decider from being exposed to the multitudes who disagree with and despise him may have prevented him from hearing the words of Mr. Howard, but listeners to the BBC/WBUR program The World, distributed across the U.S. by Public Radio International were treated to a short but articulate condemnation of the Bush Iraq war policy by Mr. Howard.

During previous American presidencies, less calamitous than that of George W. Bush, the most consistent visitors to local and national legislators were paid corporate lobbyists seeking favors that rarely, if ever, served the common good. Greedy K-Street 'Abramoffs' exploited American capitalism and sacrificed the many to benefit the few.

Before the reign of George W. Bush, self-indulgent corporate lobbyists far outnumbered unpaid patriots who called-on elected officials. Average Americans didn't phone, fax, email and visit their national, state and local legislators to plead for their country's salvation. They felt no need to. Their democracy, though flawed, was at no risk of failing. Their electeds, though flawed, weren't tearing it apart.

But today, with America in a Constitutional crisis, savvy constituents across the nation are rushing to intervene. The number of patriot lobbyists visiting electeds has grown substantially. Citizen interventions abound.

As we head into Labor Day weekend, there’s lots of chatter about a false flag event. "Middle Eastern looking men" acting suspicious on ferries in Puget Sound – are they preparing to mess up San Francisco? while the Bay Bridge is closed for renovation this weekend? Or is Houston the target?, with trains full of military vehicles are supposedly rolling into town? Or perhaps Oregon? where Operation Noble Resolve is underway?

About 250 war protesters gathered outside the Texas Republican straw poll Saturday, calling for an immediate troop withdrawal and the impeachment of President Bush.

Cindy Sheehan was among the war protesters outside the Texas Republican straw poll in Fort Worth. Organizers who promised thousands would attend the protest said the lower- than-expected turnout inside the straw poll had an effect.

Among the speakers was Cindy Sheehan, who became the face of the anti-war movement after setting up camp outside the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Ms. Sheehan, the mother of a killed-in-action soldier, plans to challenge House Speaker Nancy Pelosi next year because the California Democrat has not sought to impeach the president.

"Not only should they be impeached, they should be thrown in prison," Ms. Sheehan said. "Most of the Democrats belong in prison right next to George Bush and Dick Cheney."

On Aug. 1, Gen. Richard Cody, the United States Army’s vice chief of staff, flew to the sprawling base at Fort Knox, Ky., to talk with the officers enrolled in the Captains Career Course. These are the Army’s elite junior officers. Of the 127 captains taking the five-week course, 119 had served one or two tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan, mainly as lieutenants. Nearly all would soon be going back as company commanders. A captain named Matt Wignall, who recently spent 16 months in Iraq with a Stryker brigade combat team, asked Cody, the Army’s second-highest-ranking general, what he thought of a recent article by Lt. Col. Paul Yingling titled “A Failure in Generalship.” The article, a scathing indictment that circulated far and wide, including in Iraq, accused the Army’s generals of lacking “professional character,” “creative intelligence” and “moral courage.”

In an attempt to please an audience of veterans yesterday, Hillary Clinton said the surge was "working" and gave a helping-hand to the Bush spin machine, Pentagon dead-enders and right-wing pundits who have already begun to quote her.

It is as though I’m back as an analyst at the CIA, trying to estimate the chances of an attack on Iran. The putative attacker, though, happens to be our own president.

It is precisely the kind of work we analysts used to do. And, while it is still a bit jarring to be turning our analytical tools on the U.S. leadership, it is by no means entirely new. For, of necessity, we Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) have been doing that for almost six years now—ever since 9/11, when “everything changed.”

St. Louis -- A young man from Palestine and another from Israel riveted 400 U.S. military veterans to their seats last week in this city on the Mississippi River. What captivated the audience was their recent decision to put down the guns they’d pointed at each other for years.

There is a self-defeating aspect of our thinking about Iraq. Why can't this government get its people under control? We spend billions of dollars and the lives and limbs of thousands of Americans to support a government that can't govern. So we get frustrated, and we send in more troops, and we put more pressure on the government to institute reforms and to get tough with dissidents, and it only gets worse. How much money do we have to spend, and how many lives need to be lost before it will get better? The answer to the enigma is that it is our support for this government that makes it unable to govern the country. The more money we spend, the more soldiers we send, the more pressure we put on them, the less they are an Iraqi government, and the more they are an American client regime. An American client regime will always create resentment among Iraqis who would prefer not having foreigners run their country. So it is like when you have been given the wrong medicine and the more you take, the sicker you get. Or when you think you are dousing a lab fire with water and you actually picked up the alcohol. The more we push, the less legitimate the Iraqi government becomes. When you add the perfectly normal suspicion of the people in the Middle East that we are there for the oil, and not for their benefit, then you see that the more active we get, the worse our situation becomes. Our American can-do attitude pushes us in exactly the wrong direction. Arrogantly we think that we can solve any problem in the world if we just have the will and spend the resources. The President is preparing the country now for the down-side of our eventual departure. When we leave he will say it was not a faulty policy but a failure of will. As in Vietnam people will argue for decades over whether we could have "won" if we had the will. In me it generates screaming, wall-kicking frustration. (I don't actually scream or kick walls. I write emails.) We would never tolerate another country exerting pressure on our government to implement "reforms." We would never tolerate foreign troops on the ground in the United States. We would never tolerate another government telling us that we should do things like they do. Why do we think that a majority of the Iraqis would want the United States to do all of these things for them? "Don't tread on us either!" In the last few days American politicians have been critical of the Maliki government. Then Thursday President Bush felt the need to shore him up, so he said he supported Maliki. "He is a good guy." We are acting like whether or not we support him matters. That is because whether or not we support him does matter. This makes it more obvious that he is our client and not a patriot with indigenous support. Maliki may be seen as an extension of the Bush regime. (Did you know that when Americans applied for government jobs in Iraq immediately after the fall of Saddam, one of the questions on the questionnaire was, "Do you support the US Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade?). We had the same frustration with the Ngo Dinh Diem regime which we supported in South Vietnam until 1963. We think that when politicians express and support American values (Diem was a Christian, although most of Vietnam was Buddhist) people should support them, because obviously American values are the best, and everyone does or should know that. But leaders of other countries who support American values, for instance a free market economy that allows unfettered access to Iraq oil, look like foreigners to their own people. We might not think that Moslem religious values are more important than a free market economy or majority rule, but in Iraq it doesn't matter what we think. As long as we think it does, we will continue to try to put out a fire with flammable liquids.

Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the
president. As in, it doesn't want any.

A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country.

Iraq War Veteran Evan Knappenberger, 1st BDE, 4th Infantry Division, will maintain an ongoing vigil on a 6' scaffold on the Mall in Washington, DC as part of a weeklong Tower Guard vigil beginning Sunday, August 26th through Saturday, September 1st.

Knappenberger will hold his 7-day, 24-hour vigil adjacent to the Washington Monument on the National Mall. He will set up the tower between Constitution Avenue and Madison Drive and 14th and 15th Streets, NW (area near National Museum of American History). This action, supported by various organizations including the Washington Peace Center, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Whatcom Peace & Justice Center, follows a successful 8-day/7-night Tower Guard in Bellingham, WA that garnered extensive media coverage from the AP; all major Seattle TV news networks; Democracy Now! and Air America.

Knappenberger is drawing attention to the US military's STOP-LOSS and INACTIVE RESERVE policies, which he submits are being used as a substitute for conscription in a political war.

"I spent a year in Iraq. I pulled 97 nights on tower guard," explained the 22 year-old intelligence veteran. "Many of the friends I served
with have completed their Active Duty contracts. Now, they're being sent back to Iraq for their third or fourth tours. Tours have been extended from 12 months to up to 18 months. Some soldiers are getting called up after living years of civilian life. Stop-loss is an unethical policy."

While fulfilling his duties, Knappenberger witnessed the full effect of the administration's policies on military personnel and the Iraqi
people, and began to question those policies. He was given a General Discharge under honorable circumstances in April 2007. Now that he is home, he is committed to doing everything he can to represent his fellow soldiers and address the wrongs being done to them and their families.

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